"Ay, Conal, lad, and the music too."
"It is so sweet and plaintive. Sing it, Duncan. That is, just a verse or two; for sleep, it seems to me, is already beginning to steal down on the moonbeams to seal my aching eyes."
Duncan had a beautiful voice; but he could modulate it, so that no one could hear it many yards away. This does he now.
Singing to Conal as mother used to sing it. Singing to Conal and to Conal only.
"Hush, my dear, lie still and slumber!
Holy angels guard thy bed!
Heavenly blessings without number
Gently falling on thy head."
Sleep does steal down on the moonbeams ere long, and seals the eyes of both.
Thus hand in hand the brothers sleep.
CHAPTER XII.--WINTER LIFE IN AN ANTARCTIC PACK.
Changes in temperature take place soon and sudden in those far-off Antarctic regions, and on the very night succeeding the return of our heroes from the dangers of that daring but terrible ascent of Mount Terror, it came on to blow high and hard from the south.
It was a snow-laden wind too, with the lowest temperature that had yet been logged.